1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gripping judgment apparatus and a gripping judgment method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, robots that autonomously move and perform various tasks have been implemented. The autonomous mobile robots are expected to perform tasks in environments where a human being cannot easily enter such as a maintenance task in a nuclear plant, a rescue task in a disaster site, or a task in a cosmic space.
Meanwhile, expectations on introducing the autonomous mobile robots into homes and helping users at home have increased. For example, as livelihood support for the elderly or wheel chair users, the autonomous mobile robot can perform a task physically difficult for the user on behalf of the user, so that a burden of the user can be alleviated.
For example, in the case of having the robot tidy up a room, the robot performs an operation of gripping an object placed in a room and moving the object to a predetermined position. At this time, since an object that is not allowed to be moved, an object that is difficult to move, and an object that is difficult to grip should not be tidied up, the robot needs to judge whether or not an object to move is grippable or whether or not it is movable. Even in a scene other than a tidying task, the judgment is important when performing an operation of gripping an object or an operation of moving a gripped object.
Here, a variety of methods have been proposed on a gripping control method of gripping an object through a robot hand and the like as well. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2009-56513 discloses a gripping position and posture judgment method of correcting a computed gripping position and posture to a gripping position and posture within a movement range when the computed gripping position and posture are outside a movement range of an arm and a hand. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2007-276112 discloses a robot hand apparatus that judges whether or not reaction force computed during an operation of placing an object exceeds a threshold value and judges a timing suitable for releasing an object regardless of a shape of an object or a direction in which an object is gripped. According to the techniques, using the robot hand, it is possible to move an object with a high degree of certainty and place the moved object without causing shock.